


Ghosts

by CatFiveDuck



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: F/M, Fluff, ki play, on the very low end of explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-24 02:04:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15620064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatFiveDuck/pseuds/CatFiveDuck
Summary: Morning recollections after the night before.





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> This is a quick one-shot to try out a particular headcanon I’m super-keen on before I commit to writing the entire thing in the distant future. Smut is massively out of my comfort zone, but it's a necessary vehicle for the idea, so I’m dipping my toe in slowly.
> 
> All hail the rare-pair.

It was still dark when Goten snuck out of bed, throwing on shorts and vest fetched from his open laundry hamper rather than risk a drawer banging (yesterday’s discarded clothes far too fancy for kitchen work). Marron had thankfully slept through, only rolling over as he’d opened the door, a chill breeze eeking its way past to stroke her bare back and make her bundle up the sheets. He leant on the door to watch her a moment, her chest’s slow rise and fall, then made his way to the café below, mentally reordering his to-do list to leave the loudest to last.

The comforting smell of bread was fading back to cinnamon and chocolate pastries by the time Marron was up and dressed. Goten, picking up the lightest of creaks on the concealed stairs, stopped icing a traybake to track her slow descent and stand ready for her front of house. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows he could make out the cool dawn beginning to brighten the sky in earnest, but it would be a while still before it pooled into the café and square outside. First light gave the café a ghostly glow - paired with the echoing quiet this was Goten’s own fiercely-guarded limbic space, but one he didn’t mind sharing this morning.

Marron peeped through the bead curtain, a picture of paranoia, frantically searching for gossips concealing their life force.

“We’re alone,” Goten said, “for another half-hour at least.”

She sighed in relief. This was still a secret, the territory too new to even begin to map out for another.

From what he assumed was habit she took up a seat at the counter, languid and stifling a yawn. They’d been up late and six am was never Marron’s favourite time of day to boot, but he had a remedy prepared in the form of a coffee press, mug and tiny cream pitcher. He pulled the tray out from under the counter and presented it with a flourish. Marron laughed.

“I knew I heard the grinder when I got out of the shower - thank you.” She took the now-filled mug from his hands and breathed in the deep richness, the drink still too hot for a drawn-out sip. “I got your note.”

“I didn’t want you to worry.”

“That you’d absconded from your own home?” She snorted. “You’re always up early.”

“Yeah, but…” She’d been so peaceful in her sleep. He didn’t want her first waking thought to be of the cold bed, and whether that meant he was pretending the night before hadn’t happened.

In watching her first tentative sip he caught sight of a purple mark down her front.

“You’ve got some smoosh on your shirt,” he said.

“What?”

“Smoosh, look.” 

With great suspicion she followed his outstretched finger to her chest, flinching in case he flicked her nose (a reasonable assumption), but her narrowed eyes gave way to dismay.

“Oh, what?” Marron tugged at her blouse to get a better look at the blackberry stain. “This is your fault."

“ _Mine_ \--?!”

“ _You_  picked the dessert last night.” She tried to rub it out with a wet finger, and upon failing scanned the counter behind Goten for something to rescue her. He fetched her a clean, damp cloth from the roll by the sink.

“I’m not the one who didn’t bring a change of clothes.”

“ _I’m_ not the one who invited me back.”

“No no no!” She was twisting the truth to make the halo fit. “You invited yourself. I suggested coffee, then you said ‘oh, Goten that sounds wonderful, let’s go back to yours’.”

Marron didn’t appreciate the impersonation - she stopped her furious scrubbing a beat to glare.

“You literally own a coffee shop - how was I supposed to know you meant--”

“I don’t remember you being _that_  confused,” he crowed. Marron’s face flushed pink, “and I got you that coffee in the end” - he gestured to her mug - “even if it wasn’t last night.”

“Last night…” Instead of firing a retort Marron’s eyes softened, not meeting Goten’s own but taken instead with the coffee. She’d caught him off-guard with that and for a moment he wondered if he’d crossed a line, but he spotted the hint of a smile.

Last night was their second time together. 

Their first had been special, almost too reverent of the occasion. They'd been ritualistic in checking in with each other, both cognizant of their relationship’s changing form, it weighing heavy like incense in the air around them that afternoon, their perspiration not from gentle effort but fear that at any moment the haze would lift and there’d be only remorse. They’d explored each other in this new, almost virginal light, eyes and fingertips tracing contours of marble on a master sculptor's work, loving in equal measure the scars and jeweled beauty of a long-sought relic. It had been a new experience for Marron especially; their powerful ki woven together to speak to the other, to feel the other, the closeness all lovers yearn for uncovered by them, a joyful happenstance of their unusual upbringings. There was no hiding of thought nor feeling from the other. In the total vulnerability afforded by the connection they’d been graced with the path to purest rapture.

After, they’d laid together nervous - Goten of all people feeling the anxiety though whose it was originally he couldn't say - expecting to feel regret, to mourn a lost friendship, knowing Marron would not be able to go back even if Goten thought he could.

But no rush of grief came for them, so instead they’d dozed together, a growing sense of contentment blossoming into the early evening. Then, as difficult as it was he’d had to leave. She’d understood, seeing him out with a tender kiss - it was only meant to have been a lunch date, after all.

Last night though… last night the second-guessing and chaste pretense had fallen away. It was clumsy. Rushed. Heady. Fumbled keys and clasps and buttons, breathy ‘not here’s and ‘not yet’s and neither really sure of the instigator, a mutual ache clear to the other and spurring them on until they were entwined, skin-on-skin, foreheads together and eyes locked as though that would enhance their read.

As ownership of their flesh became shared it had been theirs to treat as they saw fit, featherlight touch turned to tugs, tongue and teeth. They hadn't needed to be careful - they could feel the other just as keenly, hear the other before they moaned, see flashes of memories and unfiltered imagination steering their next movements. Sentences had hung half-voiced - there’d been no need to finish them, the full meaning already carried.

He'd tasted the salt on his own skin through her, keyed them both up by whispering salicious nothings in her ear, felt the cold pressure of the wall behind her rocking on his own back - nape to tailbone - as he’d lifted and pinned her. He knew she’d feel her own arms looped over his shoulders, the squeeze of her thighs above his hips, the warm pleasure he'd got from her fingers through his hair. She’d turned it to a pull as she’d read his mind. The warmth burnt him and they’d both sucked breath through gritted teeth, him goaded to respond by leaning into her and he'd felt her fullness in kind, each of his little rises better for her than the last. Though, not quite the peak it could be.

Without need for discussion they’d found the floor, a billow of ki cushioning their fall. Marron had taken the lead, now understanding the mix of messages enough to find the compromise of rhythm and tempo, Goten responding to the unspoken call by providing counterpoint, holding her close. They'd lost themselves completely to the crescendo, that swell of pleasure, no distinction between minds and bodies until the impossibly high wave had crested... and crashed over them both.

They’d collapsed satiated, their breath in tandem for a long while, before their connection faded and they'd laughed at themselves into the small hours.

“Last night...” Marron tried again, and she held her mug with two hands, shoulders scrunched in that way she does when thinking hard. But that ghost of a smile was still hanging there unfinished like her sentence, eyes now sultry and dragging him in.

Last night was perfect.


End file.
